Peach Clubhouse Movie Night – Second Tuesday of December. After that — next year — movies only by request. These movies are free at the Peach Clubhouse, 1110 Justine, just northeast of downtown Bryan.

December 13, Tuesday, will be the beautiful BBC “Jungles.”

The next requested presentation will be Bill Moyers’ interview of Oren Lyons, Chief of the Onandaga, a member of the Iroquois Alliance. We will discuss this and the story of the Great Law of the Peacemaker, as told by John Mohawk. The time for this is to be arranged. Let me know if you want to participate.

No other programs are yet scheduled for December. Enjoy your holidays.

Radio Spots – Bare Bones Biology Radio spots may be heard on KEOS FM, 89.1, three times a week. Sunday morning at 6:55 AM, Sunday afternoon at 3 PM, Tuesday evening at 8:55 PM. These may be downloaded at http://WWW.BareBonesBiology.com or at http://FactFictionFancy.Wordpress.com. The new series, beginning this month, examines the Peach Clubhouse Imagining cited in the masthead.
Other Activities around the Brazos Valley

The Insight Meditation Group holds a half-hour sit, followed by a short reading and discussion of a general nature, every Wednesday at noontime at the Unitarian Church in College Station, Friday at 3 pm at the Peach Clubhouse.
Dec. 8, Friends of Peace – Thursday, Poppa Rollo’s Pizza, 703 N.Valley Mills Drive, Waco
6 p.m.- business and pizza buffet.
6:30 p.m.-film and discussion.
Admission: one non-perishable food item for a local food bank.
Selection: OCCUPY EVERYWHERE: ON THE NEW POLITICS AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE
MOVEMENT AGAINST CORPORATE POWER (2011).
Or if you can’t make that, you can view or download a one-hour excerpt of a panel discussion, different program, at the website of Democracy Now. The program aired November 4. For more about creative political solutions, go to political section of this newsletter and some other interesting activities of Friends of Peace in Waco.

Remapping our Rule of Law

Occupy College Station
has held at least two public actions. I have a nice video with chanting but haven‘t figured out how to put that in a newsletter.

A quote from Arundhati Roy:
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.” Our stories, according to Jack Kornfield, are who we are. I think it’s best to not let some corporation tell us who we are.

That’s basically it, and so well put, but of course to do that — to refuse to believe the brainwashing — we need to have something better in our brains. Something true and based in factual reality that we can live now and grow for our future, and that of course we are doing.

And speaking of the future, I’m attaching a short clip from Democracy Now that reports a neat and effective political response to the effort of our drug companies to overcharge the world for essential medicines on the basis of American patents. The speaker is Harriet Washington, author of the book, Deadly Monopolies. (www.democracynow.org)

Another commentary on Occupy is of special interest because it is a discussion among three American Buddhist thinkers, Michael Stone, David Loy and Ethan Nichtern. “When you go deeper” you get beyond superficial nitpicking and find there,what truth? (ttp://TheIDProject.org)

That comment reminds me of the new approaches of Democracy School (http://www.celdf.org/) and others who are preventing the corposystem from co-opting control over land, water, food, air and other resources that belong to the commons (i.e., everyone) by changing our own assumptions about the law itself. “Does our activism mean so little that we want no more than a few beeps from cars that are passing by?”

Compassion Corner

“It seems to me that no matter which spiritual path one is on, and no matter what the calling or vocation, this question of purpose must arise, if there is to be any real meaning in “commitment” and “practice.” To what are we committed, we must ask, again and again. Each day presents the challenge to contemplate the question and find a way of acting differently that becomes a transformative “way” that honors Life and Nature’s limits and wonders. What are we doing to stop “the machine?” Shouldn’t all practices now be anchored in the awareness of the peril we face?” Or do we just sit there and enjoy it?” Question raised by one of our tentacles.
Bottom Line Biology

“On the face of it, it wasn’t anything to shout about — just more stats in a world drowning in numbers. These happen to have been put out by the U.S. Department of Energy and they reflected, as an Associated Press headline put it, the “biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases.” In other words, in 2010, humanity (with a special bow to China, the United States, and onrushing India) managed to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than at any time since the industrial revolution began — 564 million more tons than in 2009, which represents an increase of 6%. According to AP’s Seth Borenstein, that’s “higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.” He’s talking about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which is, if anything, considered “conservative” in its projections of future catastrophe by many climate scientists. Put another way, we’re talking more greenhouse gases than have entered the Earth’s atmosphere in tens of millions of years.” From Tomgramhttp://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175468/tomgram%3A_bill_mckibben%2C_puncturing_the_pipeline/#more

And if you really want to know why we should care about these facts (I know you already know) a new Declaration that describes very beautifully the relationship that we must have with our ecosystem if we want to survive into the future in our home on this living earth. (Blue River Declaration, Spring Creek Project springcreek@oregonstate.edu)

Here are a few web sites that will be of interest to people who want to keep up with the news about Fracking, courtesy of our Austin tentacle.

Fracdallas is a Public Information site by a local Dallas interest group. Since you mentioned possibly creating a web site or blog site to raise public awareness in your area, I thought this might help you with ideas: http://fracdallas.org/docs/ambient.htmll

The NOSEBLEEDS that are so common near the gas compressor plants are caused by highly volitile compounds. You may not be able to smell them, but the nose knows. My nosebleeds have stopped since I moved.

Food and Farming

Next issue I will give more attention to the agribusiness control over farmers in the United States and abroad, including the genetics part of the problem that usually is not explained, but is the biggest reason we do not want to turn our entire food-making enterprise over to Montsanto. And the other reason we don’t want to do that has to do with the same issues that are discussed above relative to fracking — our commons. We really do NOT want the things we require for our survival to be manipulated by the corposystem. The ecosystem already knows how to do a far better job. In the meantime, the world is belatedly beginning to take notice. If you want one example, check out the new trend in the Phillipines:

“This is indeed what is happening in the Philippines: The agriculture ministry, long a position for agribusiness allies, is currently headed by Proceso Alcala, a strong proponent of organic agriculture. Within a year of his appointment in mid-2010 – and just months after we had walked through Atilano’s fields – we learned that the Philippine agriculture department had stopped subsidizing chemical fertilizers and was steering public funds into community-based seed banks for traditional rice varieties. Alcala, we heard, was hiring community-based farmer-scientists and gearing up for an “eat healthy” campaign that will champion brown rice and other healthy foods.” http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/can_danilo_atilano_feed_the_world/

That’s nice and we had better go ahead in that direction if we want to survive. However, there is only one action that can truly ensure human survival on this earth, and that is control of our population pressure on the sensitive interactions that keep the earth alive and well,. Thus I get extremely crabby whenever any of our positive or negative sound bites suggests that ANY ONE THING will save us because it simply is not true and it pulls people’s energy away from what we truly MUST do if we are to survive. The answer to the misleading headline is of the above article is No. Organic farming cannot feed 7 billion people. Neither can any other kind of farming for very long. Picture the earth, population mounting, more and more mouths to feed, each doubling of numbers taking half as long as the previous doubling. Mouths crying for food, the earth increasingly paved over. The climate and destruction of soil reducing productivity in spite of the best efforts of the organic farmers. And killing more and more and more species that the earth requires for its resilience, until finally we kill ourselves.

Now someone will tell me I’m against organic farming. NO. Organic farming is A GOOD THING. HOWEVER, if there are no humans around to appreciate it, then all the effort will have been wasted. There is only one essential requirement for our survival. We have all the necessary resources and technologies to provide birth control for every person on earth who wants it. If we don’t do that, we will never be able to feed all the people.

It is rather astounding that we make up debates over which kind of agriculture can feed us all — when it is so clear that neither can — and it would be so relatively easy to solve the problem. No of course not easy — but simple. If we don’t deal with population control we will not survive on this earth no matter what kind of magic we invoke. Organic farming is better than Monsanto farming for very many reasons, but I don’t understand why we can’t get it through our heads that all of our work won’t make any difference to anyone if all the people die. Of course the earth will likely return to lovely glowing health, but what is lovely if no people remain to enjoy it?

OK, so I have scientifically literate friends who think we might get by without becoming entirely extinct, but I don’t think you will like what they envision, either. So why don’t we start to do something THAT WILL WORK FOR THE FUTURE! And then farm for our own welfare in our spare time. Not the other way around.

And as we are trying to promote gardening, folks in the Brazos Valley can participate in a student project at TAMU (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=427169369603), and open to public participation. Howdy! Farm. You will find their produce available at the Farmers’ Market in Bryan (http://www.brazosvalleyfarmersmarket.com). And of course organically grown foods at Brazos Natural Foods in College Station (BNF@txcyber.com) And a heads up from the Peach Clubhouse, we have a small open space available if the right person wants to take on the challenge of creating an organic community garden closer to downtown Bryan. See? I’m not against it. I just hope someone will be around to eat it 50 years from now.
The Peach Clubhouse Newsletter imagines the minimum requirements for a sustainable, reasonably comfortable and rewarding human lifestyle within our earth ecosystem for our future generations. We would grow a communication and educational system that teaches everyone these minimum skills:
1. The basic physical requirements for our living earth to be healthy. Because the healthy functions of earth ecosystem provide us with everything we need to stay alive — earth, food energy, air, water.
2. Practical, applied compassion. Because humans require compassion in order to lead reasonably comfortable and rewarding lives (www://Bare BonesBiology 080-The Golden Rule).
3. A rule of law that recognizes the different and sometimes conflicting needs of different levels of life — individual, population, ecosystem — and strives for the overall most useful solutions..
Factual Biology-Education-Practical Compassion-Rule of Law -|- https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com

Right from the beginning, my blog has been about power, particularly it is about personal power – our power to build our lives around our own positive values. Of course we can’t do anything or everything that we want to do. Other powers exist that we do not personally control. The power of communities; the power of the corposystem; and most importantly for our survival, the power of the ecosystem. We can not directly control these other things, at least we can’t control how they respond to our mutual environment, and it’s better that we don’t try.

It is better to clearly understand the powers that we are able to control, rather than to stand around comparing notes about what we can not do. Or to cry and complain because we can’t have everything we want. It’s given away, that crying time. We could have used that time to grow our own personal power. When we spend time complaining about the corposystem, whether we hate it or fear it, all that time we are complaining about the corposystem we are actually growing the power of the corposystem, and they count on that help. They nurture it. They want us to believe they can control us. But it’s only true at level three. In the important ways, they can not control us at the level of personal power. Not unless we believe in the corposystem more than we believe in ourselves.

I have spoken often about levels of organization, including levels of power. I am not the ecosystem (level four in my system of categorizing). I am not the corposystem (level three). I am not the community (level two). But I am me, level one, and my personal power is my own to claim and use for the benefit of myself or of humankind or for whatever I choose to use it. I can give it away, but nobody can take it away from me. It lives in the choices that I make right now. Every breath, every millisecond of life, contains a choice – what to do – and whether I think about it or not, whether I believe it or not, what I do with the choice of this moment, including doing nothing, is my personal power (or my weakness). If I choose to spend this moment moaning over the negative power of the corposystem, then I am growing a future, for myself and for other people, that will be one long moan.

The Peach Clubhouse exists because I could not find enough expressions of personal power in the other places where I looked for them, including some educational and progressive groups. What I found instead was a lock-step re-affirmation of the power of the corposystem to rule our lives unhampered.

That’s hogwash.

But it’s easy to understand.

Because it’s hard to see around our training.

For example, I came THIS close to making the Peach Clubhouse into a nonprofit organization, before I realized what that means. The nonprofits are the scavengers of the corposystem. They’re part of the corposystem. Like a buzzard or a maggot, they support the corposystem by cleaning up after it, cleaning up the harm that it causes. And more importantly they support the corposystem mantra. Success is growth – selling, fighting, growing.

Well, damn, selling, fighting and growing only creates more messes, and it defines the nonprofits by the same toxic charter that defines the corposystem. Were I to buy into this system, I would betray the whole purpose of the Peach Clubhouse — this emblem of my personal power — by allowing it to be swallowed up into the corposystem, defined by the greed, fear and hatred of the corposystem. As our media, and our rule of law, have been swallowed up, and even – you can believe this or not – the corposystem evidently thinks it can swallow up the ecosystem. Well that won’t happen, because none of us can live without the ecosystem. And neither will I throw the Peach Clubhouse into that black hole.

Tuesday July 19 at 6 pm – Movie, Biography of the Dalai Lama, about an hour, with liquid refreshment.

Thursday, July 21 at noontime – two recorded lectures on the subject of legal remedies to the corposystem.

After this Thursday we will not have regular Thursday hours. Thursday will be a “by appointment” day.

Friday, July 22 at 2 pm – Meditation and a discussion, with liquid refreshment, about the practical use of lovingkindness meditation as an antidote for everyday problems

Fracking Facts and Opinions

This past week we had the opportunity to question a person who has advanced degrees and training in the oil and gas industry.

Question: We are told that drilling into the ground in general, and fracking in particular, does not contaminate our water that we get from underground aquifers. (An aquifer is a place where the water collects over many decades because of the way it pools in the various layers of underground rock. In Texas, most of our drinking water for the cities and also water for irrigation comes from underground aquifers. You can find maps of these aquifers at Http://FactFictionFancy.wordpress.com web site, on the right side of the page.)

Answer: “Any time you drill a hole in Mother Earth, there is a possibility of contaminating the water supply. High-pressure fracking is different because there is pressure on the order of 10 or 20,000 psi under there. If you get into Mother Earth below some fracture in the rocks a mile or more down, or if you get a verticle pattern of fracturing instead of the horizontal, then it will migrate from the high pressure of the well to the lower pressures that are higher in the earth.”

If you the reader are interested in would like to hear information from another expert, we recommend the videos of Anthony Ingraffia, a professor at Cornell University. He gives a very clear explanation of the process of fracking, and also the kinds of question that we all need to be asking about the process. I will also post this one on my blog (it is below).

We are dedicated to evaluation of the many claims on all sides
about genetically modified food. Many of these claims, on all
sides, are exaggerated or false. That’s too bad. And it’s hard to
understand, because the real goal of us all is to build a good life
for the future, and it’s hard to imagine that we can build a good
life on false information

Insight Meditation at noon on Wednesday at the UU in College Station.
Meditation at 3 pm on Friday at the Peach Clubhouse. We will have another guided meditation on the same subject (the four greatest qualities) but a different guide, followed by discussion, to last about an hour — or more if we choose.

Hydraulic fracturing presents us all with a great challenge. We’ve been told this a good, clean, USA-based source of energy; we’ve also been told we’ve got about a 25-year supply (at current use levels). We’ve seen the economic up-turn and increased number of jobs in areas where drilling is occurring. We’re also learning about what is called the “dark side of the boom” — the side effects of this drilling on health, human and animal, clean water supplies, clean air, land surfaces, property values. We hear reports of “bad neighbor” behavior by some of the drilling companies. We read that energy industry businesses and federal agencies alike have some question about the economic viability of drilling for this type of energy source.

Certainly hydraulic fracturing is making drastic changes to our land. When making drastic changes to biological systems it behooves all of us to remember and honor the precautionary principle (pdf attached). If we don’t know what the results will be, proceed with extreme caution or don’t proceed at all. Explore alternatives.

We need to ask ourselves if fracking is worth the chance of destroying water and other natural resources, health & well-being. What will we gain from going after this natural gas in the long term? It’s well-documented that the globe’s reserves of hydro-carbon-based fuels are dwindling. Why aren’t we putting equal human energy into planning for the transfer from coal, oil and gas to alternative energy sources? We are making this very profound decision now, with every well we drill.

In the Brazos Valley of Texas, a group of interested citizens have come together to prepare and disseminate information about fracking locally, in Texas, and around the country. Peach Clubhouse is an active supporter of this group and is willing to show the movie Gasland to any interested small or large groups. In the meantime a good description of fracking is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/susanwatts/2010/12/how_is_fracking_stacking.html

We now have a file at the Peach Clubhouse, w. video, about the Precautionary Policy.

Interesting Links and References

“We can’t be on the stock exchange, we are the stock exchanged.” Nikki Giovani

This is genetically modified foods week. If you want to contribute to the outline or the script of a short movie about “What are genetically modified foods?” let me know.
mllamoreux@hotmail.com and put something relevant in the subject line.

radio show is also attached. The show airs on KEOS FM in Bryan, Texas, at 6:55 AM on Sunday, 8:55PM on Tuesday, and a new time at 3:00PM on Sunday. A new show each week. This week show is the third of a series. You can read the entire series and download the audios on the FactFictionFancy blog. The address is below.

The Peach Clubhouse Vidcast

on the subject of soil is now in preparation. Anyone who wants to participate with pictures, audio, ideas (I received some great ideas last week), editing etc, let me know. We need some pictures of soil well cared for and soil under attack. As this is our first official production, we are planning to take to the end of the year to finish it. The next vidcast proposed is our local Farmers’ Market.

Peach Clubhouse Movies

are scheduled as follows for the month of July, at the Peach Clubhouse, address below. A/C is installed and is working great. Low noise, high comfort.

July 5, Tuesday 6 pm – The Corporation. Debbie brought this movie to us, and it has some very useful information.
July 14, Thursday at noontime – David vs. Montsanto. I highly recommend this success story to everyone who cares about agriculture, the ecosystem and our place in it.
July 19, Tuesday 6 pm – Biography of the Dalais Lama
July 21, Thursday at noon – two short audio presentations, one is about the legal issues related to corporate agriculture, the other about the precautionary principle.

The movie Gasland will be available for groups, churches, anywhere good citizens of any political leaning are found. Fracking is already active in our Brazos Valley, and it’s always best to be aware how it could affect us all, whether or not there is a well on (under) your property. Gasland will also be shown at TAMU.

A facebook page and web page are in preparation, and we will have resources to answer inquiries. Materials will be available in both local public libraries. If you want to be on the mailing list, contact Lynn at the Peach Clubhouse, MLLamoreux@hotmail.com

FOURTH OF JULY PEACE ACTION, 2011 – Several FOP members are interested in an action for peace on this Monday, July 4th. The day typically celebrates war and militarism. We propose instead a celebration of the end of war. The true end of U.S. wars and occupations. Can you commit to 2 hours the afternoon of July 4th, at the corner of Valley Mills Drive and Hwy 84? Before you run up there tomorrow, check with Alan to make sure it’s still on http://www.friendsofpeace.org

In Benicia, California

, citizens came together to develop a Climate Action Plan. They presented it for approval to the city, and then to the citizens of the city in a series of five meetings entitled “Stewards of our Children’s Future.” Then they sent copies of all that work to us. I am inspired and would be happy to share these DVDs.

Power to the People Conference looks very good, only $25
July 9, 2011, 9am – 5 pm, registration 8:30 am
Pecore Hall, St. Stephen’s Church
1805 West Alabama, Houston, TX 77098

The peach clubhouse is open on Tuesday from 10 am to 4 pm – on movie nights we stay open to end of movie. It is also open on Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm (except July 28) and on Friday from 10 am until 4 pm. Meditation from 2 to 4 this month, 3 to 4 usually.

The address is 1110 Justine Street in Bryan, take Texas to 17th, go one block east. The telephone when I learn to turn it on is 436-7665.